I've recently got my HPPA machine booting Gentoo. Took some trouble getting it to boot, but now that it does, it seems rock solid.
The rig (more aless a stationary tank) is currently connected via the Dual HSC Ethernet card using some DEC chipset, as well as a serial connection to another PC running Hyperterm which I used to set it up and get access to the [ugly] HP Firmware.

So here is my question.

Can I run X, or X & VNC, and setup the machine as a VNC server, running across my network, with basically an otherwise fully-fledged "setup" with Gnome, Firefox, etc? The machine does NOT have a Video card, nor do I have any desire to chase around for a HSC Video card and the appropriete HP -> VGA adapters for a card with relativly no graphics power.

Is this at all possible, and is it easy to setup? I don't doubt that the machine has the power to run Gnome, it is currently running 6 200mhz 8200 HPPA Procs (most you can cram in there) with 4GB Ram. Its just a matter of if I can do this across a network without ever attaching a monitor and keyboard/mouse.

It's possible and fairly easy to set up tightvnc under freebsd and x86 arch. Tightvnc already includes X server, so there's no need to install another one(xorg or xfree). As I don't have hppa hardware, it is difficult to say what works best for you.

About the only thing that's lacking, is using Xming to connect from a Windows box -- which is almost identical to the command you use on Linux.
Just copy the shortcut for starting X, then tack on -query HOSTNAME on the end of the command._________________Stuart Longland (a.k.a Redhatter, VK4MSL)
I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere...

My only concern with XDMCP is that your guide there mentions using X to configure GDM... This machine literally has no monitor, no Video card for that fact, just a crapload of optical connections, a serial connection (Console), and more 10/100BaseT connections then I dare to count.

My whole question was basically if I can setup my bare Gentoo installation on this tank, then do a "emerge gnome" or whatever the command was (its been a while since I've used Gentoo), compile Gnome, grab some sort of X server, be it VNC or XDMCP, and run that on the K9000, then run the client to connect to the server on the K9000 via my other box' sitting on the desk hooked into the same hub.

Ideally I don't want to have to go through insane loops to emerge software for Gnome on the network-X-server, just work over the remote connection as I'd normally do, as if I was sitting at the machine and it had a Video card (which it doesn't).

Well okay... I can't vouch for doing this on hppa. I do use this on both mips and x86 machines, and it works well.

You do need X installed... it doesn't need to be configured, but it does need to be installed. Basically all you're looking for is the client libs -- perhaps the more experimental modular X is the holy grail you're after?

Essentially though emerge gnome should do what you expect. Then just set up gdm to listen to XDMCP requests (and disable the local X server), and point your X server to it.
The latter bit is trivial.

I have the same problem you face on my Indigo2 Impact. The box runs headless in my laundry, with a serial console hooked up to an old laptop (Pentium 120MHz, 48MB RAM) running Debian Linux/i386 (Why Debian? Well, I only needed minicom and sshd... and Debian was already installed). X does work on the machine now (apparently -- I haven't tried yet), but when I first set the box up, the Solid Impact graphics board wasn't supported by Linux yet. Basically I just ran emerge xorg-x11, and a few hours later, I had the client-side X libs I needed. emerge kde, a little tinkering, and before long I had KDM staring me in the face over XDMCP. _________________Stuart Longland (a.k.a Redhatter, VK4MSL)
I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere...

Why do you want to run X remotely on such a machine? You can't run any graphics-intensive applications remotely and expect decent performance. This machine sounds like it's better suited as a server, and you should be using the command line on a server not a gui._________________Compaq XP1000 Alpha EV67 667Mhz w/ 2GB ECC
32bit PCI: ATI Radeon 9100 (DRI works!)
32bit PCI: Generic Firewire 400 card
64bit PCI: BCM5703 Gig-E (Compaq NC7771)
64bit PCI: Sil3124 SATA w/ mdadm RAID1 (pair of WD VelociRaptors)

Actually, XDMCP isn't too bad, even over 10Mbit links. For a desktop, it is quite workable -- in fact, X Terminals and other thin clients were very popular not too long ago, and in some ways, are making a comeback.

VNC however, is hideous, even over 100Mbit connections. It's designed to provide basic graphic functionality over low-bandwidth links, so it's not suprising that it looks terrible most of the time._________________Stuart Longland (a.k.a Redhatter, VK4MSL)
I haven't lost my mind - it's backed up on a tape somewhere...